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again. your post can be picked apart so aggressively. it's not even funny.

$150 HID set.. lol. a lot more than that.

and i said nothing about you not being able to afford anything. dont get to defensive there.

I'm asking you to pick it apart... explain your argument to me.

I just bought a set of HID's for my girlfriend's Mazda... Morimoto H7 - Used that as a baseline. The bulbs in my car were I think $60, and the new ballasts I'm getting were $110. That's not far from $150, either.

And the "you" was ambiguous in your post. It was a response specifically addressing IF you were telling me I couldn't afford it.

I just bought a set of HID's for my girlfriend's Mazda... Morimoto H7 - Used that as a baseline. The bulbs in my car were I think $60, and the new ballasts I'm getting were $110. That's not far from $150, either.

And the "you" was ambiguous in your post. It was a response specifically addressing IF you were telling me I couldn't afford it.

I don't repeat myself on super long topics like these. I've done 50% of it before in other threads here that long predate your existence here. I've been considering doing a long thread on it. I've swayed many teens to not do this and many accepted my explanation and said "ur right mango i will wait and save"

OP, if your friend has the OE system, just get the D2S bulbs. The OEM Philips 85122 are pretty good, and the Osram Xenarc CBIs are better. If the housing is a halogen, then get the appropriate OE system and retrofit. Never put HID bulbs in a halogen housing, they will scatter the beam and thus get you worse light on the road, and everyone else will be blinded by the light shining at them instead of at the road. If your friend wants to do it, copy/paste this and send it to him. Would you let him drive drunk?

What's illegal or dangerous about it? His are going into a projector housing. Mine were in a projector housing on an e34. Not dangerous OR illegal.

Stupid? Sure. I was in college and couldn't drop $150 on an HID set, $45 was much more reasonable. They're not the greatest quality but I had no issues and I knew that it wasn't a morimoto ballast.

If you're saying I can't afford an e46, you're being incredibly presumptuous and overall a douchebag. That sums it up best.

What's illegal about it? Everything. None of the parts are DOT legal.

Dangerous?

Just because a housing has a projector in it doesn't mean the projector was designed for an HID capsule. I say "capsule" because they're not bulbs. They're glass capsules that have salts inside them which vaporize when high amounts of electricity are drawn through them. This is what emits light.

Why does that matter? Because the light is emitted from a different place than where the filament of the proper halogen bulb is positioned with respect to the projector lens and reflector bowl. The focal points of these 2 setups are different, which means you throw the optics off by putting the wrong bulb (capsule) in there.

Plug and play kits get around this by using what we call "rebased" capsules. They take an HID capsule and throw it on a halogen base so it can be installed into the wrong housing. This causes uneven light output, hot spots, and glare that's outside the normal area where light output should be.

Lights are designed to illuminate the road without blinding oncoming drivers. When you play lighting engineer and throw the wrong bulbs in there, you're likely throwing stray light up in people's eyes so they can't see properly. I loathe when I see these jack***es driving down the street with their terrible glare preventing me from seeing anything but their headlights.

Also, there's the electrical aspect of it. This isn't much of a concern in our cars at this point (due to the Xenon option and newer digital ballasts), but not too long ago putting an HID kit in your car basically meant that you were installing ballasts that drew far more current than the wiring was ever designed for. On my E36, for instance, the stock halogen wiring was designed to take 7.5A. HID ballasts would draw upwards of 15A on startup. People have literally melted the wiring in their cars due to this. Again, this is not a common issue these days with our cars. But, if you're going to play lighting engineer, you need to understand it.

As with anything, if you are going to question the design choices of people much smarter than you are, you should know what you're doing. Do your research any time you want to play engineer. Modern cars are complex, and most people have no idea what they're modifying. Don't trust the vendors to provide all the information, they're there to sell you things, not always to look out for your best interest.

Well, we can't use logic to deduce that fact because logic was thrown out the window when OP's friend wanted to replace OE Xenons with DDM.

Seems like it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mango

I don't repeat myself on super long topics like these. I've done 50% of it before in other threads here that long predate your existence here. I've been considering doing a long thread on it. I've swayed many teens to not do this and many accepted my explanation and said "ur right mango i will wait and save"

Swayed them not to buy a DDM kit? Or not to put HID's into a halogen housing? I guess my stance on DDM will remain the same. They're a budget option for HID and they're not the greatest quality but that's fine. I will berate people for trying to put HID's into a halogen housing, though.

Swayed them not to buy a DDM kit? Or not to put HID's into a halogen housing? I guess my stance on DDM will remain the same. They're a budget option for HID and they're not the greatest quality but that's fine. I will berate people for trying to put HID's into a halogen housing, though.

both. you mention housings like putting any HID into "projectors" is fine as long its a "projector bro"

nick covered enough. i won't get into it unless i decide to do a thread on it to prevent me from typing and typing and typing. i can just say click here. easier

You know what I mean. Halogen projectors have the cutoff so you can "set" it or aim it whatever you want to say, to not blind people.

I was asking because I didn't know. People modify their cutoff shields, and I wasn't sure if that's what you were referring to. Do you have a picture of rebased bulb output in stock E46 halogen projectors? This is something I haven't seen.

Just because a housing has a projector in it doesn't mean the projector was designed for an HID capsule. I say "capsule" because they're not bulbs. They're glass capsules that have salts inside them which vaporize when high amounts of electricity are drawn through them. This is what emits light.

Why does that matter? Because the light is emitted from a different place than where the filament of the proper halogen bulb is positioned with respect to the projector lens and reflector bowl. The focal points of these 2 setups are different, which means you throw the optics off by putting the wrong bulb (capsule) in there.

Plug and play kits get around this by using what we call "rebased" capsules. They take an HID capsule and throw it on a halogen base so it can be installed into the wrong housing. This causes uneven light output, hot spots, and glare that's outside the normal area where light output should be.

Lights are designed to illuminate the road without blinding oncoming drivers. When you play lighting engineer and throw the wrong bulbs in there, you're likely throwing stray light up in people's eyes so they can't see properly. I loathe when I see these jack***es driving down the street with their terrible glare preventing me from seeing anything but their headlights.

Also, there's the electrical aspect of it. This isn't much of a concern in our cars at this point (due to the Xenon option and newer digital ballasts), but not too long ago putting an HID kit in your car basically meant that you were installing ballasts that drew far more current than the wiring was ever designed for. On my E36, for instance, the stock halogen wiring was designed to take 7.5A. HID ballasts would draw upwards of 15A on startup. People have literally melted the wiring in their cars due to this. Again, this is not a common issue these days with our cars. But, if you're going to play lighting engineer, you need to understand it.

As with anything, if you are going to question the design choices of people much smarter than you are, you should know what you're doing. Do your research any time you want to play engineer. Modern cars are complex, and most people have no idea what they're modifying. Don't trust the vendors to provide all the information, they're there to sell you things, not always to look out for your best interest.

I'm not questioning design choices of people much smarter than me, but don't feed me that DOT legality. Morimoto ballasts aren't either but they don't receive the same crap on here.

The HID in a projector housing with hot spots is interesting. I don't think i ever had any problems with it from memory but I can completely sympathize with that point.

That being said.... Just because it's not designed for it doesn't mean it won't work fine. here's the cut off for an e34 with HID's.

We're talking about simple things.... an HID system. If you hate the quality then that's one thing, but don't hate on DDM because they're not as good as Morimoto or the other ballasts and then tell people not to reengineer things. On that note... He's putting it into a housing designed for an HID capsule. Why is there a problem with that?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mango

both. you mention housings like putting any HID into "projectors" is fine as long its a "projector bro"

nick covered enough. i won't get into it unless i decide to do a thread on it to prevent me from typing and typing and typing. i can just say click here. easier

See above for the e34 cutoff. Also, don't put words in my mouth. That is, again, how you come off as a pompous asshole. Don't talk down to me because you can replace every nut and bolt on your car. I haven't insulted you so don't do it to me.

^^ Deep deep topic? Give me a break.
It's a light bulb, for crying out loud.
You put it in, you adjust to your liking. If anyone flashes you back, you lower it a bit.
I'd pay more attention to a window tint than a light bulb. And that's just one factor in a car.

How many mangos does it take to install a light bulb?
None. You don't get to install it. :lol:

That's one factor out of many. Safety for other drivers is only one aspect as well (assuming what you said is true--which is mostly not)

this is a deep deep topic and requires several layers of deep thinking to get. there's so much to it. don't have the time to get into it right now though

nice setup, nick

Pretty sure I can handle some basic light refraction stuff. It's pretty straight forward. What sites offer good insights on this matter?

I know you've brought up filament locations once, but that's covered by using H7 HID bulbs. Maybe the HID is hotter and will damage the halogen bowls? Halogen is extremely hot, so is Xenon actually hotter? I'm missing auto leveling of course. What else is there?